Bill Evans出生于一九二九年，原名William John Evans，在学校的时候，也有人称他William \"Fingers\" Evnas。五零年代晚期，比尔．伊文斯开始在乐坛崭露头角，出道不久，便与迈尔．戴维士（Miles Davis）同赴新港音乐祭，六九年合作了《Kind of Blue》，更使他很快就打响了名号。在此辑中，他参与了录音及制作，也担当主要的钢琴手，《Blue in Green》，《Flamenco Sketches》两曲是他的作品，这张专辑的编曲也由他担任，甚至内页的介绍也是由他执笔。我们可以说因为戴维士的大胆而开启了调式音乐在爵士乐的实践，但在首场实验性的录音中，却是由比尔．伊文斯担当主要的旗手。除了与戴维士的合作之外，一九五六年到一九六三年间，比尔伊文斯在河岸唱片留下了十多张的唱片，也是重要的史料，记录着伊文斯的摸索，实验以及成熟。
一九五六年，伊文斯加入河岸唱片，录制了他的第一张商业发行：《爵士新概念（New Jazz conceptions）》，在这张专辑中，伊文斯虽然是首度尝试商业发行，却毫不退缩地展现他想要带给世人的爵士新概念。他将德布西与拉斐尔的演奏风格带入爵士乐的领域，展现了印象派的朦胧与神秘，却又不失爵士乐的摇摆感受以及即兴精神，相当神奇地将两者合而为一，并且悦耳动听。次的演出十天后，贝斯手史考特车祸丧生，除了乐坛失去一个重要的贝斯手，对团长比尔．伊文来说，更是痛失右手，不只使这个优异的三重奏终结，也使比尔．伊文暂停一切的演出一年，对酒精与海洛因的需求也日益加重。
六二年重新开始录音，和新任的低音大提琴手恰克．以塞列（Chuck Israels）合作，留下了《月光（Moonbeams）》和《心灵之歌（How My Heart Sings!）》两张专辑。在这两张专辑中的伊文斯和新任的低音大提手合作出另一种风味，较之史考特．拉．法罗的骚动，以塞列的拨弦较为轻巧，伊文斯则大抵保持了印象派的优美音色，多首3/4拍的华尔滋都很悦耳，但是改格的风味较相对的淡去。六二年七月，他更尝试找来小号手佛瑞狄．哈伯（Freddie Hubbard），吉他手吉姆．霍尔（Jim Hall），MJQ的低音大提琴手波西．希斯（Percy Heath）以及鼓手菲利．乔．琼斯（Philly Joe Jones）灌录了一张难得的五重奏作品《相互共呜（Interplay）》。到了一九六三年，也就是伊文斯与河岸唱片合作的最后一年，他已经开始为新东家Verve唱片灌录着名的独奏混音作品《与自己对话（Conversations With Myself）》，尝试利用新的录音技术，自己与自己搭配即兴演出。为河岸唱片留下的最后一张唱片是一张现场唱片《Bill Evans Trio at Shelly\'s Manne-Hole》，这是除了着名的前卫村两张录音外，第二场为河岸留下的现场录音，其中合作的低音大提手以塞列是拉法罗之后的接班人，而鼓手赖瑞．邦克（Larry Bunker）则是只有合作过这么一次，在演奏内容上特出之处并没有很多，但是由于是为他出道的公司录制的最后一张唱片，所以颇具时代意义。比尔.艾文斯并不像一般乐手成名于一些特殊的音乐活动或大型表演。他的诗意陈述与谦逊自若的作为，是慢慢被乐界和乐迷认同的。当他于1980年因心脏病去世时，被公认是影响往后发展最深的一位JAZZ钢琴家。

by Richard S. Ginell
With the passage of time, Bill Evans has become an entire school unto himself for pianists and a singular mood unto himself for listeners. There is no more influential jazz-oriented pianist — only McCoy Tyner exerts nearly as much pull among younger players and journeymen — and Evans has left his mark on such noted players as Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau. Borrowing heavily from the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, Evans brought a new, introverted, relaxed, lyrical, European classical sensibility into jazz — and that seems to have attracted a lot of young conservatory-trained pianists who follow his chord voicings to the letter in clubs and on stages everywhere. Indeed, classical pianists like Jean-Yves Thibaudet have recorded note-for-note transcriptions of Evans performances, bringing out the direct lineage with classical composers. In interviews, Evans often stressed that pianists should thoroughly learn technique and harmony so that they can put their inspiration to maximum use. Since he already had those tools in hand, he worked very hard on his touch, getting the special, refined tone that he wanted out of a piano. He also tried to democratize the role of the bassist and drummer in his succession of piano trios, encouraging greater contrapuntal interplay.
Bespectacled, shy, soft-spoken, and vulnerable, Evans was not a good fit into the rough-and-tumble music business. In part to shield himself from the outside world, he turned to drugs — first heroin, and later, cocaine — which undoubtedly shortened his life. In interviews, though, he sounds thoroughly in control, completely aware of what he wanted from his art, and colleagues report that he displayed a wicked sense of humor. Nowadays, Evans seems to be immune from criticism, but there was a time when he was accused of not being able to swing, or pilloried for an effete approach to jazz that was alien to its African sources. However, there are plenty of Evans recordings which show that he could indeed flash the technique and swing as hard as anyone when he wanted to, especially early in his career. He simply chose a different path for himself, one entirely reflective of his inward personality — and thats what seems to touch listeners inside and outside jazz the most. Indeed, the cult for Evans recordings is big enough to justify the existence of six large, expensive boxed sets of his output: four from Fantasys archives, one from Warner Bros., and the biggest one from Verve. A newcomer, though, would be better-advised to sample Evans in smaller doses. Since the bulk of his recordings were made with the same piano-bass-drums instrumentation, and his career was not marked by dramatic shifts in style, prolonged listening to hours upon hours of his trio recordings can lead to monotony (after all, you can even overdose on Bach, as great as he was).
Born and raised in New Jersey, Evans was recruited for Southeastern Louisiana University on a flute scholarship, where he received a thorough background in theory, played in the marching band, and also led his football team to a league championship as a quarterback. Graduating as a piano major in 1950, he started to tour with the Herbie Fields band, but the draft soon beckoned, and Evans was placed in the Fifth Army Band near Chicago. After three years in the service, he arrived in New York in 1954, playing in Tony Scotts quartet and undertaking postgraduate studies at Mannes College, where he encountered composer George Russell and his modal jazz theories. By 1956, he had already recorded his first album as a leader for Riverside, New Jazz Conceptions, still enthralled by the bop style of Bud Powell but also unveiling what was to become his best-known composition, Waltz for Debby, which he wrote while still in the Army.
In spring 1958, Evans began an eight-month gig with the Miles Davis Sextet, where he exerted a powerful influence upon the willful yet ever-searching leader. Though Evans left the band that autumn, exhausted by pressured expectations and anxious to form his own group, he was deeply involved in the planning and execution of Davis epochal Kind of Blue album in 1959, contributing ideas about mood, structure, and modal improvisation, and collaborating on several of the compositions. Although the original release gave composition credit of Blue in Green to Davis, Evans claimed he wrote it entirely, based on two chords suggested by Davis (nowadays, they receive co-credit). In any case, Kind of Blue — now the biggest-selling acoustic jazz album of all time — contains perhaps the most moving performances of Evans life.
Evans returned to the scene as a leader in December 1958 with the album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, which included the famous Peace Piece, a haunting vamp for solo piano that sounds like a long-lost Satie Gymnopedie. Evans first working trio turned out to be his most celebrated, combining forces with the astounding young bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian in three-way telepathic trialogues. With this group, Evans became a star — and there was even talk about a recording with Davis involving the entire trio. Sadly, only ten days after a landmark live session at the Village Vanguard in June 1961, LaFaro was killed in an auto accident — and the shattered Evans went into seclusion for almost a year. He re-emerged the following spring with Chuck Israels as his bassist, and he would go on to record duets with guitarist Jim Hall and a swinging quintet session, Interplay, with Hall and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.
Upon signing with Verve in 1962, Evans was encouraged by producer Creed Taylor to continue to record in more varied formats: with Gary McFarlands big band, the full-orchestra arrangements of Claus Ogerman, co-star Stan Getz, a reunion with Hall. The most remarkable of these experiments was Conversations With Myself, a session where Evans overdubbed second and third piano parts onto the first; this eventually led to two sequels in that fashion. In his only concession to the emerging jazz-rock scene, Evans dabbled with the Rhodes electric piano in the 1970s but eventually tired of it, even though inventor Harold Rhodes had tailored the instrument to Evans specifications. Mostly, though, Evans would record a wealth of material with a series of trios. Through his working trios would pass such players as bassists LaFaro (1959-1961), Israels (1962-1965), Gary Peacock (1963), Teddy Kotick (1966), Eddie Gomez (1966-1977), and Marc Johnson (1978-1980); and drummers Motian (1959-1962), Larry Bunker (1962-1965), Arnie Wise (1966, 1968), Joe Hunt (1967), Philly Joe Jones (1967, 1977-1978), Jack DeJohnette (1968), John Dentz (1968), Marty Morell (1968-1975), Eliot Zigmund (1975-1977), and Joe La Barbera (1978-1980). After Verve, Evans would record for Columbia (1971-1972), Fantasy (1973-1977), and Warner Bros. (1977-1980). The final trio with Johnson and La Barbera has been considered the best since the LaFaro-Motian team — Evans thought so himself — and their brief time together has been exhaustively documented on CDs.
Though Evans health was rapidly deteriorating, aggravated by cocaine addiction, the recordings from his last months display a renewed vitality. Even on The Last Waltz, recorded as late as a week before his death from a hemorrhaging ulcer and bronchial pneumonia, there is no audible hint of physical infirmity. After Evans death, a flood of unreleased recordings from commercial and private sources has elevated interest in this pianist to an insatiable level.